


Feedback Loop

by masterassassin



Series: Breathe, Breathe, Believe [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Bickering, Canon Compliant, Cyberpunk 2077 Slang, During Canon, Johnny and V merge more and more, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Smut, a bit of softness, oh well, set just before meeting up with Hanako, this was supposed to be just smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29002287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterassassin/pseuds/masterassassin
Summary: V watches Johnny lounge on his couch, feet up on the coffee table, with the guitar in his lap. Nibbles is curled up next to him and the picture looks sorightthat V lets his mind wander for a moment, lets himself forget about Relics, Arasaka, Mikoshi and Alt Cunningham. Lets himself forget that Johnny isn’t really there.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Male V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Breathe, Breathe, Believe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145981
Comments: 6
Kudos: 123





	Feedback Loop

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this with the intention of a short smut fic. I ended up with angst that turned inexplicably soft and then turned into mild smut.

V stares at the two bouncers guarding the entrance to Embers from across the plaza. Just around the corner of the place he found one of the tarot graffities a few days ago. Death. What a great omen. Though V talked to Misty and knows it doesn’t  _ actually  _ mean literal death in the Major Arcana, rather a significant change in someone’s life. He still doesn’t like the prospect very much. 

V keeps looking at the club entrance for a few more minutes, then he abruptly spins around and returns to his car. He still feels weird thinking about Johnny’s Porsche 911 as his own, it’s probably why he ends up taking the Caliburn he found in a cave tunnel out in the Badlands quite a lot, even though he prefers driving the Porsche. It handles like a dream.

He parked the car half on the street, half on the walkway, and a few drivers are angrily honking their horn at him as V gets back into the driver’s seat and speeds away. He couldn’t care less.

In the passenger seat, Johnny glitches into existence just as V crosses into the City Center. He pulls one leg up onto the upholstery to turn fully towards V.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

V contemplates saying nothing, but that usually leads nowhere with Johnny. “Driving home.”

“What the fuck for, V?! This is it! Let’s have a chat with the bitch and then you can finally get rid of that time bomb in your skull!”

V grits his teeth and stares stoically ahead. Hanako can wait. Realistically, V knows he doesn’t have much time left and shouldn’t waste any more, but he can’t bring himself to go just yet.

He doesn’t bother with the garage and just pulls the car up in front of the stairs leading up to Mega Building 10. V hops out of the Porsche and does his best to ignore a clearly aggravated Johnny following him all the way to the elevator. Once the metal doors slide shut behind them Johnny starts pacing the length of the elevator and when he seems to notice that this time V really is paying him no mind, he throws up his hands in frustration and disappears. V breathes out a long sigh and jogs the rest of the way to his apartment.

“Hey sweetheart,” V mumbles to the loudly meowing Nibbles greeting him at the door. It’s almost as if the cat sensed he almost just left without saying goodbye. V makes a mental note to call Kerry to let him know he’s got a cat in his apartment. Just in case.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, V!”

V wishes he didn’t jump, but Johnny’s sudden reappearance catches him completely off guard.

“Quit it, Johnny! And stop reading my thoughts!” V picks up Nibbles and goes to sit down on his bed.

“Newsflash, you stupid gonk, I’m  _ in  _ your head! And if you weren’t such a pussy, we could already be on our way to change that.”

“What are you planning?” V asks, not looking at the static-y engram.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s just, you seem real fuckin’ eager to go and get deleted off my hard drive. So I’m asking, what’s your deal? Sudden death wish or did you change your mind?”

Johnny laughs humorlessly, “I’m already dead, in case you forgot. And no, I’m not suddenly out to fuck you over and steal your body if that’s what you wanna know.”

“Then what is it?” V leans against the wall, Misty’s dreamcatcher dangling above his head, and pets Nibbles in his lap. He’s still not looking at Johnny.

The bed dips almost imperceptibly as Johnny eventually sits down with a heavy sigh. And it’s just another reminder why V really needs to get the fuck going and meet up with Hanako already. Johnny’s become more and more corporeal to him, so to speak. Realistically, V knows it’s his broken mind and the chip playing tricks on him. Making him able to sense Johnny touching him; tricking his optics, nervous system, and frontal cortex into believing the engram has a mass. If V keeps procrastinating, the biochip will simply erase him in the end. And going by the increasing frequency at which V is coughing up blood and his near constant splitting headache, it’s not gonna be long now.

Johnny pulls the aviators off his nose and tosses them aside where they glitch away into nothing. He scrubs his hands over his face.

“I can feel it,” he says, and V finally looks up. “I’m drowning you out more and more.” Johnny pulls a leg up on the covers and leans against the shelf to look at V. “If you drag this out much longer, I’ll be taking over your body no matter what we agreed on. And neither me nor you get a say in it.”

As if sensing the seriousness of the discussion, Nibbles stretches in V’s lap and jumps off the bed to curl up in her basket. Great, now V’s focus point is gone and he has nowhere to look but Johnny.

“So now you want to save me, that it?” V asks with an incredulous frown.

“Fucking hell, V! I just don’t want you to die! That so hard to believe?”

V shakes his head with a bitter laugh. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I don’t want you to d—that I don’t want you to just  _ be gone _ either?”

And this is it. The thought that’s been creeping around in V’s mind for some time now, eating away at him and making him nauseous whenever he spent too much time even thinking in the general direction of it.

V slides down on the mattress and throws an arm over his eyes. It may have only been a few weeks, but he’s gotten so used to Johnny’s presence that he simply can’t imagine life without him anymore. It’s pathetic. 

For the first time, V truly lets himself think about what could happen inside Mikoshi. Granted they even get that far. There’s also the very real possibility he could flatline on the way there. 

He can feel Johnny in his mind, reading his thoughts, feeling his fears, but V doesn’t care anymore.

So what if they make it to Mikoshi and find Alt? She’s gonna extract Johnny from V’s mind, and then that’s it. V will either die in the process or he’ll be left to live his mercenary life. Alone. Just like it was before. Yeah, right, as if that was still possible.

V presses the balls of his hands into his eye sockets, optics protesting the suboptimal pressure and flashing a warning.

“V…” Johnny’s voice pulls him from his dark thoughts, V drops his arms and blinks at him. Johnny’s expression is… concerned.

“Sorry,” V croaks and sits up to pull himself together again. “Just… give me one more night.”

V expects Johnny to disappear then, but he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps looking at him before he gets up and starts pacing again.

“Listen,” Johnny eventually speaks up, “We’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?” V asks. He doesn’t like the tone of his own voice one bit. It sounds defeated. “As I see it, the  _ best,”  _ V lifts his hand to draw quotation marks into the air, “potential outcome is for me to live a lonely life and for you to merge with cyberspace.”

“Christ, V, you’ve really gone all soft on me.”

V aims a middle finger at him. Johnny sends two back.

“Alt will think of something. She wrote the damn thing and had a good fifty years to tinker some more.”

V scoots to the edge of the mattress and gives Johnny a weak smile.

“It’s gonna be alright, V.” Johnny puts his digital hand on V’s knee in a reassuring manner. V stares at it. Johnny follows his gaze.

“It’s so fucked up.”

“What?”

“Your hand. I can feel it.”

V lifts his own hand and lets it hover over Johnny’s on his knee. He closes his eyes, then he lowers his palm on top of Johnny’s. He smiles when his brain tricks him into feeling imaginary warmth.

V hears Johnny’s breath catch slightly and  _ feels _ his fingers twitch under his hand.

“Like the most demented version of feedback loop ever,” V chuckles.

  
  


It’s almost four in the morning when Johnny succeeds in talking V into taking a dose of Paxium to get some rest. V knows he’s right, he needs every ounce of strength he can muster up for whatever is to come.

The sedative knocks him out for a good eight hours and V awakes to the soft sounds of Johnny playing guitar. It takes his sleepy brain a moment to place the melody.

“Stealing Kerry’s songs even from beyond the grave?” V mumbles into his pillow.

There’s only a brief pause before Johnny says, “Can’t help it when you’ve got it stuck in that gonk brain of yours all the time. Besides, it’s a decent tune.”

V hums and hugs the pillow. He watches Johnny lounge on his couch, feet up on the coffee table, with the guitar in his lap. Nibbles is curled up next to him and the picture looks so  _ right _ that V lets his mind wander for a moment, lets himself forget about Relics, Arasaka, Mikoshi and Alt Cunningham. Lets himself forget that Johnny isn’t really there.

Kerry’s yacht song morphs into a stripped-down version of  _ PonPon Shit  _ and V laughs softly. He rolls onto his side and pulls up a leg to conceal his not-quite-morning wood from Johnny. He’s never been around physically when V woke up like this in the mornings, and usually it wouldn’t even be a problem, but today V’s erection is quite insistent and won’t let itself be willed away. V blames the Paxium.

Johnny lets the last notes ring out and sets his guitar aside where it disappears into blue-ish static, then he leans forward and props his elbows on his knees, staring V down.

“What?” V asks.

“You gonna do something about that?”

“About what?” V asks, already guessing where this is going.

“Oh, I don’t know V, maybe the raging hard-on between your legs?” There’s an unfamiliar edge to Johnny’s voice.

“Why? You wanna watch or something?” It’s largely meant as a joke, but then Johnny shifts and V’s eyes are drawn to the man’s tight leather pants. An incredulous smirk spreads over V’s face. “Don’t tell me you got second-hand blue balls.”

“Ha-fucking-ha,” Johnny spits out, but then he shamelessly rubs a hand over his crotch and V gasps. The muscles in his thighs twitch and his dick jumps.

“Fuck.”

“No time for that. Just get off and then let’s get going.”

V contemplates just taking a cold shower for a second, but then the hard reality that this might very well be his last chance to ever jerk off hits him and he abandons the notion.

Johnny doesn’t comment on the particular train of thought, and V is thankful for it. Instead, he’s leaned back on the couch again, feet back on the table, watching V.

“You’re really gonna watch.” It doesn’t come out as a question and Johnny just shrugs.

“If I can’t get any I can at least enjoy the show.”

“Thought I’m not your type,” V says as he starts palming himself through his boxers. He can’t quite deny the thrill he gets from knowing Johnny is watching.

“I don’t have a type,” Johnny says with a sigh that sounds like he tried to hide it, but V can see him slide down on the cushions, opening his legs wider.

“This isn’t just about watching, is it?” V asks and shoves one hand into his underwear to gently tug on his balls. “I’m getting you off, too.”

“Like getting a handjob from a ghost.”

V repositions himself so he’s leaning against the wall again, eyes fixated on Johnny. And it’s not just thanks to his Kiroshi’s he can tell that Johnny is positively itching to touch himself. Fingers on both his flesh and cybernetic hand twitching minutely.

V pushes his boxers down to his thighs and closes his fist around his erection. Johnny is tracking his every move and V is close to outright telling him to just get his hands on himself. He has to admit it’s not purely just to see if it will amplify the feeling.

Turns out V doesn’t actually have to say it. When he drags his fingertips along the vein on the underside of his cock, he hears a soft groan from the couch and is treated to the sight of Johnny lifting his hips to unbutton his pants. The sound of his zipper rings loud in the otherwise quiet apartment.

V is entirely unprepared for what happens when Johnny does actually get his fist around his own cock. It’s like a second hand joined V’s on his own dick and his back arches into the touch.

“Shit,” he moans, and across the room Johnny groans almost in unison. He has his pants pushed down further now, and V isn’t even slightly surprised to see he’s commando. Or maybe the engram just erased his underwear out of convenience, but somehow V doubts it.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Johnny sighs as V rubs a thumb over his slit and the phantom fingers around him tighten and up their pace.

Johnny strokes himself firmer and faster than V usually does, or maybe it’s just the fifty-plus years of tension bottled up in him, but it’s exactly what V needs right now. His eyes stay glued to the man on his couch and when V starts to feel the telltale hot curl of building orgasm in his gut, he can’t even tell if it’s his or Johnny’s. Not that it would make a difference.

Johnny’s metal hand is clamped around his left thigh and V can feel the indents of his fingertips press into his own flesh. It only serves to turn him on more, and when Johnny circles his thumb and index finger around the head of his cock and squeezes, a large bead of precome drips onto V’s belly.

V drags his fingers down the crease of his thigh to his perineum and rubs over the sensitive spot.

“Fuck, V!” Johnny curses and V watches him buck up into his own hand, his grip grows almost bruising and V knows it’s only a matter of minutes now. He keeps up his ministrations, alternating pointed twists of his wrist with drawn-out strokes, but it’s the sharp drag of Johnny’s thumbnail over the sensitive head that eventually sends V spiraling.

Intense doesn’t even begin to describe V’s orgasm. All sensations are amped up to the max, and it truly feels like he’s coming for two people at once. Going by the muffled stream of expletives rising from the couch, Johnny’s experience is just as breathtaking.

It takes V a full five minutes to regain his breathing and stop the minute twitches of his muscles, even with all his installed cyberware. The streaks and small pool of come have started to grow cold and tacky on his stomach and chest, so V grabs a discarded shirt to wipe off the worst of it.

Johnny makes a disgusted sound.

“Shut up,” V says mildly, “You don’t have that problem.”

Johnny reclined against the cushions, arms spread wide over the back. He lost his tank top and when V pulls up his boxers and gets up from the bed, he can see a sheen of digitized sweat on his bare chest. His pants are still undone.

“Bet you regret always wearing these now, hm?”

Johnny flips him off. V chuckles and grabs the pack of cigs from the coffee table.

“What happened to no smoking in the apartment?” Johnny asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Shut up and put your dick away.”

“Why? It’s a nice dick.”

V ignores him and lights up a cigarette instead. He takes a long drag and plops down on the couch. In what can probably be seen as Johnny’s particular brand of thanks for the post-orgasm nicotine fix, he zips up his pants without further complaints, though.

Johnny leans back again and mirrors V, digital cig now hanging between his lips. He sighs in bliss.

“Shit V, you shoulda recorded that as a BD. Give it to the Judy chick to tune. Woulda made a fuck ton of eddies for sure.”

V hums noncommittally. 

“So, ready to tackle Mikoshi now?” Johnny asks eventually, breaking the comfortable silence. 

“Way to ruin the moment.”

“Come on, V. It’s all gonna work out. I’ve got a plan.”

“A plan that leaves us both standing in the end?” V asks doubtfully, but he gets up and starts pulling on his most modified gear.

Johnny suddenly appears in front of him. He puts both hands on V’s shoulders.

“Stop worrying our pretty little head so much.” Johnny grins. “Trust me.”

V huffs, “Fine.” He clips Johnny’s Malorian into his belt. “Lemme just ring Kerry real quick.”

“Whatever makes you feel better.”

Kerry doesn’t pick up, and V is almost relieved he doesn't have to explain himself. So he just leaves him a message. When he’s done, he refills Nibbles food and water bowl and pets her once more.

Johnny is waiting for him by the door, aviators and trademark grin back in place.

“Let’s delta, samurai. We have a digital fortress to break into.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this silly little piece.  
> The sequel is now online!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
